Why does the Diocese of Virginia have an annual Council and not an annual Convention? It’s not always been so. Just since 1861:

Meeting in 1861 the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Confederate states adopted a constitution: There appeared to be no eager desire for change or for emphasizing the fact of separation. Nothing was attempted in the way of legislation at this time. It was felt that, until the Constitution had been ratified and adopted by the Dioceses, there could be no proper basis for canonical action; and so the whole body of Canons, prepared and reported along with the Constitution to the Convention of October, 1861, was ordered to be printed, and was referred to the first General Council to be held under the Constitution when adopted. One of the changes of the new Constitution was to substitute “Council” for “Convention” in the name of the legislative assemblies, both of the Dioceses and of the national triennial meetings…. The name Council is still retained in some of the Southern Dioceses as the designation of the annual Convention. (Source. The Church in the Confederate States: A History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States, Chapter II, by Joseph Blount Cheshire, D.D., Bishop of North Carolina, New York, London, Bombay and Calcutta: Longmans, Green and Co., 1912.)

Today two of those Southern Dioceses retain the name Council as the designation for their annual Convention, Virginia and Mississippi. In addition, the dioceses Southern Virginia and Southwestern Virginia use the name Council rather than Convention. Southern Virginia was created out of the Diocese of Virginia in 1892, and Southwestern Virginia out of Southern Virginia in 1919.

In histories of U.Va., enslaved African Americans largely go unnamed and sometimes even unmentioned, and scholars, until recently, have done little to bring them out of the shadows.

The tide has turned in recent years, as the Board of Visitors, students, faculty, staff and alumni have initiated efforts to understand, document and commemorate the slaves who lived and labored at the University of Virginia. Each group is working on answers to a common set of questions: Who were these enslaved men and women who helped build and run the University? What did they do, how were they treated and how should the University treat their legacy?

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When Maurie McInnis (Col ’88), professor of art history and vice provost for academic affairs, attended the University of Virginia as an undergraduate in the mid-1980s, she worked for the University Guide Service. “The standard line then was that Thomas Jefferson would not allow slaves to come with students; therefore, there were no slaves,” she says. McInnis graduated in 1988, but later returned to teach art history and for a number of years has lectured, with Kirt von Daacke (Col ’97), an associate professor of history, on Jefferson, U.Va. and slavery. One of her undergraduate students was Catherine S. Neale (Col ’06), who wrote what scholars agree is the definitive treatment of slavery at U.Va. to date.

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The first two slaves at the University worked to clear land that had once been James Monroe’s cornfield during the summer of 1817. Then, at the first Board of Visitors meeting, on October 7, 1817, officials authorized the hiring of additional laborers, including slaves, to begin construction of the University. According to Neale, these men hauled timber to construction sites on Grounds, where they cut and nailed it. They also molded and fired bricks and used them to build the University’s first buildings and walls. In an effort at cost cutting, most of these slaves at the University were hired from local owners, who were paid a set annual amount per slave and who expected their “property” to be returned reasonably well clothed. This often meant nothing more than providing outer- and underclothing, along with double-soled shoes.

Tradition placed the onus of medical care for hired slaves on the University, but care was sometimes delayed as slave owners and the University argued over who was responsible for the cost. In at least one instance this came at the expense of a sick slave’s life, according to research by Ervin Jordan Jr., an associate professor and research archivist in Special Collections who is at work on a book about African Americans at the University.

The University owned outright a handful of slaves. Jefferson himself, in his role as a member of the Board of Visitors, agreed to purchase a slave for $125 in January 1819. By 1830, the University owned four slaves. In 1832, the University purchased a slave named Lewis Commodore for $580, Henry Martin’s predecessor as bell ringer. At any given time, however, there were as many as 100 or more slaves working on Grounds.

Once the University was built, the work of slaves transitioned from construction to the day-to-day necessities of students, who were prohibited from bringing their own slaves onto Grounds. Some students who owned slaves brought them to Charlottesville despite the prohibition, hiring them out or housing them elsewhere.

In contrast, faculty were allowed to bring their personal slaves with them to live at the University. Students were, however, attended to by slaves on Grounds; those slaves were owned by the independent hotelkeepers who ran the hotels, or boardinghouses, where students lived.

“There was about one slave for every 20 students,” says Ervin Jordan. “They were kept busy during the course of the day.”

In 1835, an average slave working in one of the hotels began the day making fires, blacking boots, sweeping floors, making beds and carrying away ashes. On a more periodic basis he did various “deep-cleaning” chores such as whitewashing the fireplace before either bringing in the ice or the wood, depending on the season.

Slaves were often blamed when living conditions at the University deteriorated, as they often did. The historian Philip Alexander Bruce, who published a five-volume history of the University in the early 1920s, referred to “shifty negro servants,” “slipshod slave service,” and “lazy, untrained slaves,” blaming them, among other things, for contributing to deadly outbreaks of disease. Catherine Neale’s history includes accounts of other slaves being kicked, beaten or yelled at by students who, in some instances, resented the fact that faculty were allowed to keep slaves on Grounds.

“Typical students came from Southern, slave-owning families,” Jordan explains. “When you owned slaves, you had the power of life and death over another human being. These students tended to have what I would call an attitude problem with authority. These students might even have owned more slaves than their professors, and they did not take too kindly to authority.”

According to Neale, a group of students beat Lewis Commodore, the enslaved bell ringer, apparently in protest of the school’s strict time schedule in 1837. In a rare move, Commodore was asked to testify, and he identified one of his assailants. The following year, two students attacked Fielding, a male slave belonging to Professor Charles Bonnycastle. Fielding received, as described by Bonnycastle, “a severe and inhuman beating” because he had interfered with the students’ attempts to disband a group of free blacks. When Bonnycastle intervened “for the purpose of preventing his servant from being murdered,” he too was beaten. In this case, Fielding was not allowed to testify and ultimately the University declined to punish the students. Other instances of abuse were punished; for example, a student who fired a pistol and attacked a slave in 1839 with a knife was expelled.

In 1856, according to faculty minutes cited in Gayle Schulman’s history, a student confessed to beating unconscious a slave girl, aged 10 or 11. She had wandered onto Grounds and, after being confronted by the student, had not replied with what he deemed to be appropriate deference. The student told professors “that whenever a servant is insolent to him, he will take upon himself the right of punishing him without the consent of his master.” The student said his actions were “not only tolerated by society, but with proper qualifications may be defended on the ground of the necessity of maintaining due subordination in this class of persons.” The faculty, after originally recommending expulsion, reconsidered and the student was not punished.

Such a result was fairly typical. McInnis says that early records of the University indicate that students were more likely to be disciplined for wearing the wrong jacket than for assaulting a slave. As for their sometimes violent behavior: “It helps put into perspective what Jefferson wrote in Notes on the State of Virginia,” she says, referring to Jefferson’s famous observation that the white children of slaveholders, “nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities.” It was for that reason that Jefferson prohibited students from bringing their own slaves on Grounds.

Slavery is a tough role, hard sell at Colonial Williamsburg says the headline in the Washington Post:

Even as Colonial Williamsburg and other historic sites have tried to do justice to the story of slavery and attract more minority visitors, they’ve sometimes had difficulty persuading black actors to take jobs interpreting enslaved figures.

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Part of his job, Seals said, is to ensure that the actors remember that they are not who they interpret. “We’re taught to be detached from your character. Doing these roles really tests that hypothesis,” he said. “It’s not for everyone.”

The costumes can be psychologically problematic. So, too, can guests, who often aren’t sure how to respond when confronted with a shameful chapter of American history.

Sympathetic visitors to Williamsburg have been known to bump or block white actor-interpreters who are haranguing or otherwise mistreating enslaved black characters. Occasionally, they’ve grabbed prop guns or started to shout about fighting back.

Racist and demeaning comments aren’t uncommon. Willie Wright, a veteran actor-interpreter, said a child once asked him if he was a slave. When Wright said yes, the boy, who was white, demanded that Wright bring him a soda.

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Colonial Williamsburg has struggled to fill one slavery role: that of a young, black male.

The position, a full-time job that pays between $13 and $18 an hour, has been open for two years, said Weldon, the organization’s director of historic area programming. “Some people turned us down because they didn’t want to portray an enslaved character.” Other sites in Virginia and Maryland have hit similar roadblocks.

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…the increased emphasis on black history hasn’t helped position Colonial Williamsburg as a major destination for African American tourists.

In the late 1990s, African Americans accounted for just 4 percent of the site’s approximately 1 million annual visitors. Over the past few years, as overall paid attendance has dropped — it was just over 650,000 last year — the percentage of African American visitors has also fallen. By between 2 and 3 percent over the past few years, according to Colonial Williamsburg officials.

A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union (1861)

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.

The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.

The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.

It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.

It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.

It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.

It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.

It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives.

It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security.

It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system.

It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause.

It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood.

Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.

Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it.

Judith McGuire, a refugee from occupied Alexandria, attended St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond on the March 27, 1863, fast day. “The churches were all crowded with worshippers,” she reported, “who, I trust, felt their dependence on God in this great struggle.”

McGuire’s comments begin to show the extent to which Virginia’s and the Confederacy’s leaders succeeded in framing the Civil War as a religious struggle. …

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White churchmen who believed that they were engaged in a holy war sometimes feared that Virginians might not be righteous enough to succeed. … Clerics tried to address this fatalistic turn of white Southern religiosity by arguing that God chastened his chosen people—and that suffering was thereby a sign of white Southerners’ special relationship with God, not of their pending defeat. In a widely published sermon in January 1865, Episcopalian Charles Minnigerode preached that “[t]he might and power which our enemies bring against us, are not the might and power of God’s spirit, we may be sure—except so far as they are permitted to chasten us for our sins and train us for the hardships of a godly warfare.”

The Rev. Charles Minnigerode DD preached that sermon at St. Paul’s Episcopal, Richmond on January 1, 1865. Richmond falls in April of 1865.

Is it not want of faith, which is the root of all that murmuring against God’s providence, that impatience at delay and the frustration of our plans, that repining under the pressure of misfortunes and losses and reverses? of that hasty spirit which charges our losses upon others, and finds relief in censure and distrust? which acts upon the impulse of the moment and forms its conclusions from the passing events of the day, judges of the favour of God by a success and of his displeasure by a reverse? which allows itself to be tossed about by changes which meet us in our earthly life, and rushes with equal thoughtlessness or recklessness–now into presumption on the crest of a prosperous wave–again into utter despondency, aye sinks down in despair, when the billows rise above us and seem ready to swallow us up.

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And instead of falling into despair, and giving up and sacrificing all in pusillanimity or personal spite, manly action, which meets the stern reality with courage and, in reliance on God’s help, and trusting to his mercy, begirts itself to the work before him, and redeems the time by using every lawful means and making every reasonable exertion to do his duty and accomplish his purpose. Such, I say, are the marks of the true man, of the Christian, of the believer; who shall not make haste, but persevere under trials and against difficulties till his work is done; and who can never fail–even though here on earth he should find no other triumph but the martyr’s crown.

This is the true lesson of life, the secret of our failure or success, our victory or defeat in the problem of our existence. …

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What is it that makes the present crisis so painful?

Our reverses? NO, BRETHREN. For great as they have been, (and no honest man would hide their extent,) we have had reverses before, and God always has blessed them to us, made them the source of greater harmony among ourselves, roused us to new and greater exertions, and taught us to bear them and repair them as men. What makes the present crisis so painful and so perilous lies not in what the enemy has done to us with his armies, but in what our own coward, faithless, selfish hearts may do. The all but general despondency, the lack of faith in ourselves and in God’s assistance, the haste with which, from want of faith, many would rush to this or that wild expedient, though at the sacrifice of all that first armed us to the battle, some perhaps at the sacrifice of honour and truth…

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… Let us do our duty, be faithful in our work, and we can safely leave results with God! The might and power which our enemies bring against us, are not the might and power of God’s Spirit, we may be sure–except so far as they are permitted to chasten us for our sins and train us for the hardships of a godly warfare. Trust in his Spirit and in his might and gracious promises; and that trust shall buoy us up to do our part in the work of our deliverance and independence. Oh! when I recollect what others have done in the struggle for their liberty and existence, the sacrifices they have brought….

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… How true are the words of the present Governor of South Carolina, when in his Inaugural he said: “Other nations, for lesser purposes, have striven longer, endured more than we have, and won for themselves imperishable honour. Let us not hesitate in our purpose, or falter in its execution.” Aye, Brethren, no nation ever gained its freedom without suffering; and had we time to refer to the facts of history, we could easily show how true it is that others have suffered more and struggled longer….

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There have been many whose great stimulant was not the principle of national freedom and the sacred cause of constitutional and inalienable rights, but the aspiration for wealth and power and a great new empire. But “pride goeth before a fall”–can we wonder that such a fall should overtake us? But shall we be cast down and not rather take it as a solemn, painful lesson to profit by, and be led to the true and only foundation of all right and hope and prosperity? Shall it be said of us, that “we begun to build and were not able to finish?’

The question resolves itself into this: Shall we be of the number of those who, in the crucible of affliction, were found wanting, and proved themselves unworthy of the prize they fought for? or, shall we be of those who, through trials and fiery persecution, endured and glorified God, and honoured themselves and blessed their country by remaining faithful, and in every danger proved themselves true men, brave men, Christian heroes?

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Errors, grave errors have been committed, no doubt. Only let us acknowledge the hand of God even there, even in our failures; and let us remember that the great error, the great difficulty is in us, in ourselves, in our own faithless hearts, and sinful lives, and selfish fears, and hasty judgments; and oh! I do pray and hope that God will have mercy upon us, and give us better minds and stout hearts and unfailing faith, that shall not make haste, that shall win the prize. But if we fall, let us fall with our faces upward, our hearts turned to God, our hands in the work, our wounds in the breast, with blessings–not curses–upon our lips; and all is not lost! We have retained our honor, we have done our duty to the last, and lived and died as the servants of God, lived in faith and died in the hope of glory.

The Westmoreland County slave plot compelled lawmakers to create a series of restrictions aimed at preventing further conspiracies. On July 26, 1690, Virginia lieutenant governor Francis Nicholson issued a proclamation ordering that the 1680 act be publicly read at all county courts and parish churches every six months. The following year, on April 3, 1691, the General Assembly passed “An act for suppressing outlying slaves,” which granted county sheriffs, their deputies, and any other “lawfull authority” the ability to kill any slaves resisting, running away, or refusing to surrender themselves when so ordered. For each slave killed in this manner, owners would collect 4,000 pounds of tobacco from the colonial government. The act further sought to prevent the “abominable mixture and spurious issue” of mixed-race unions by prohibiting English men or women from marrying any “negroe, mulatto, or Indian man or woman bond or free.”

As the first conspiracy in British North America not involving white supporters or participants, the Westmoreland plot confirmed long-held fears among planters while provoking new ones. Their concerns were now focused more sharply on enslaved African Americans, helping to show how Africanized the colony’s labor force had become since the Servants’ Plot of 1663. Servitude in Virginia had become a condition largely dictated by race, and, in the future, servile revolts would be planned and executed almost exclusively by blacks. Indeed, until John Brown‘s raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859, white support for slave revolts in Virginia was minimal at best.

Emphasis added. Parish churches means Church of England parishes, the precursor to The Episcopal Church. As the established church it was an instrument of the government of the time.

Byron Rushing from the Diocese of Massachusetts was elected on the second ballot July 11 to serve as the next vice president of the House of Deputies.

Rushing has been a General Convention deputy since 1973 and has served as a member of the Massachusetts State Legislature since 1983. He is founding member of the Episcopal Urban Caucus, and serves on the boards of the Episcopal Women’s Caucus and the Episcopal Network for Economic Justice. He currently serves on the council of advice for the president of the House of Deputies.

Massive Resistance and the Closing of the Schools

Under the leadership of U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr., Virginia chose to obstruct the Brown v. Board of Education decision by enacting a policy of Massive Resistance. Governor J. Lindsay Almond Jr. closed public schools in Warren County, Charlottesville, and Norfolk in the autumn of 1958 rather than integrate them, but two court decisions on January 19, 1959—one from a federal court, the other from the state supreme court—both overturned the Massive Resistance laws and demanded that the schools be reopened.

Prince Edward County officials continued to defy the court orders, however. On May 9, 1959, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals set September 1 as a deadline for integration. On June 26, the county board of supervisors voted instead to cut off revenues to the public schools. Encouraged by segregationists from across the state and the South, Prince Edward was the only locality in the nation to take such a step. The schools did not open on September 10 as scheduled and remained closed for the next five years.

While white students quickly moved into Prince Edward Academy—a new private school supported by state-approved tuition grants and donations from ardent segregationists—black students were left without any educational facilities. Some local churches provided a rudimentary substitute for the local schools, and some black students attended classes in nearby counties or, with the aid of the Quaker-affiliated American Friends Service Committee, relocated. Most black students, however, and especially children who were too young to move away from home, were denied access to any formal education. Similarly, most black teachers lost their jobs, forcing many to leave the community.

Of the 112 Episcopal clergy canonically and physically resident in the Diocese of Virginia in 1860, 103 could be located in the U.S. Census of that year. Eighty-four of the brethren, or 82 percent, possessed at least one slave, while some owned dozens.

In our own research, we have located thus far located 99 in the U.S. Census of 1860. Thus far we find 67, or 68%, were slaveholders.

We found our 67th slaveholder yesterday, the Rev. George W. Dame. He served Camden Parish in Danville, Pittsylvania County (map), and is remembered as the father of the Episcopal Church in the area. Like most us, a single story does not describe us. Dame was a slave holder, but he was also a faithful chaplain to Union soldiers imprisoned in Danville.

Dame is found in this Census page where you can see his age (48), occupation (“Clergyman P.E.”) and place of birth (New Hampshire). Given the precision of the occupation we can be certain this is our man. The census record also shows the other members of his household, their race , the value of his real estate and the value of his personal estate.

The value of Dame’s estate was considerable for the time: real estate is $10,200; his personal estate, $14,000.

There were eleven persons in the Dame household, all white. Eight of those are probably his wife and children. Besides Dame, four others in the household are earning an income. Two others, last name Cushing, are likely relatives: see biography and Dame family papers below.

The census slave schedule shows Dame owned fourteen slaves, and had four slave houses. Slave names are not given in census slave schedules. His slaves by age, gender and color:

27, F (female), B (black)

35, F, B

35, M, B

28, M, B

26, F, B

26, M, B

23, F, B

15, M, B

9, M, B

7, M, B

5, M, B

3, F, B

3, M, B

1/2, F, B

(A hint to other researchers: The reason this record was not found quickly on ancestry.com is due to an electronic mistranscription of his name. He has located by looking on the Census page for neighbors who likely owned slaves.)

During the Civil War, Dr. Dame ministered to the federal prisoners who were confined in Danville. One of the soldiers came back in the 1880s and took this photograph of Dr. Dame on the front porch of his house on Colquhoun Street. (http://earlydanvillepublicschools.blogspot.com/)

buried in National Cemetery in Danville. Dame “would go to the prisons each day and copy down the names of those who had died.” His records have been used in a project to more fully identify the men buried there. More: Dr. Rev. George Washington Dame lived on a three-acre tract on Colquhoun Street not so far from what became the National Cemetery after the Civil War. Dr. Dame prepared wooden markers for federal prisoners who died while being held prisoners of war. He is largely responsible for preserving the identity of more that 1,300 soldiers who remain buried in the cemetery on Lee Street.

Biography. “Dr. George Washington Dame, father of Dr. William Meade Dame, was a prominent clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal church, and for the remarkably long period of fifty-six years was rector of Camden parish, Danville, Virginia. He was at one time Professor of Latin in Hampden Sidney College, and for several years held the office of superintendent of public schools in Pittsylvania county, Virginia. He was a man of “dauntless energy, gift for teaching, utter unselfishness and great charity toward all men.” He married Mary Maria, daughter of Major Carter Page, of “The Fork,” Cumberland county, Virginia, and his wife, Lucy (Nelson) Page.” More: “Lived Danville Virginia. Came to Virginia May 1823 to be educated at Hampden-Sidney College, of which his uncle, Jonathan P. Cushing, was President. Was a professor there from 1832 to 1836. Was principal of a female academy in Lynchburg Virginia in 1838, and at Prince Edward Courthouse in 1839 and 1840. Ordained and moved to Danville Virginia in Sep 1840. Was principal of a female academy from 1840 to 1864, and rector of Camden Parish from 1840 to 1890 – fifty years.”

This collection centers on George Washington Dame (1812–1895), Episcopal minister and educator of Danville, and his wife, Mary Maria (Page) Dame (1813–1895). Letters, ca. 1850–1859, from George Dame to Mary Dame discuss his work as a minister and the operation of their household during her absence (section 2). Letters, 1846–1863, to Mary Dame from her sister, Lucy Jane (Page) Cushing (1804–1872), include information on religion and the activities of family members, as well as events in the neighborhood and beyond (section 3). The collection also contains Jonathan Cushing Dame’s (b. 1836) letters to his parents, as well as letters to Mary Dame from her other children, her nieces, and other female relatives (section 6). A letter, 1851, from Jonathan Dame offers a detailed account of the escape of one of the family’s slaves, and one, ca. 1850, from his brother, William Meade Dame (1844–1923), provides a similar account of a murder allegedly committed by a free black. A small amount of correspondence pertains to schools operated by George Dame, sometimes in conjunction with his wife, including one for girls in the 1850s (sections 2, 3, 6 and 7). The papers contain little information on the Civil War, but offer insights into family relationships and gender roles and expectations in the mid-nineteenth century.